Nora POV
It's been three days since I followed that bastard's instructions and walked into what seemed like Hell. I had arrived at the place called 'Nuka World', and found a somewhat still functioning theme park. If you counted functioning as being infested by raiders, ghouls, and God knows what else was crawling around in the areas I had yet to explore. Seriously, the Kiddie Kingdom was creepy as all Hell, even without the ghouls and the irradiated mist.
Whenever I had time to myself, that being when I wasn't being forced to go somewhere with Seras, my thoughts inexorably drifted towards my missing son. I honestly didn't know if I was ever going to be able to look for him again. Anytime she left I was forced to accompany her. Despite her saying I wasn't a prisoner, it felt very much like a prison. I wasn't allowed to leave unless it was with her or Gage. She said it was for my protection, but the one time I managed to sneak out I accidentally bumped, literally, into a group of the raiders called 'Disciples'. They were angry at first, but once they realized who I was, they freaked out and ran away. I didn't know exactly, but I had a hunch it was something Seras did.
And wasn't that an entirely new can of worms. I had grown up reading stories and watching movies about vampires, but I had never expected that I'd actually meet one. All of the stuff in fiction had said about them was basically all wrong. I had seen Seras go into the sun multiple times without looking any worse for wear. Through sheer luck, I managed to find some wild, mutated cousin of garlic growing in the ruins of an old greenhouse. She had simply laughed off the matter, saying that garlic hadn't affected her in over two hundred years. I'd even tested my silver necklace that Nate had given me for our one year anniversary and gotten nothing. Not even a sizzle.
"Nora," I heard Gage's gravelly voice call out from a back room. "Lunch is ready." Despite the less than preferable conditions, Gage had an uncanny knack for cooking. With an almost reluctant sigh, I stood and headed to where the food was. I needed to keep my strength for finding Shaun after all. When I walked into the dining area, a meal that wouldn't be out of place in a setting before the bombs greeted me: a well seared steak, a side of mashed potatoes with small pieces of what looked like parsley, and an honest to goodness cob of corn.
"It looks delicious." I spoke truthfully.
"The meat is Deathclaw and the potatoes are instamash that I dolled up with some spices. Don't know where they got the corn, though." He spoke through a mouthful of food. I sat down at my place across from Gage and picked up my fork and knife. The first piece of the steak I cut out revealed that it was cooked to medium well.
The meal was delicious, save for the corn, which had a funky taste to it. I left the remainder of the cob on the plate, having finished everything but. I reclined back into the chair, a small smile on my face, content to enjoy post-food satisfaction. That dream was broken when the elevator dinged and in walked Seras. As I did my best to ignore her, she and Gage spoke in hushed tones. Gage gave a single nod and hurried out to the outdoor lift that lead to the ground level.
"Come with me, I have something to discuss with the leaders then we are heading to the Commonwealth." Seras spoke neutrally. I blinked, wondering whether I had heard her correctly.
"You mean I'm going to be free?" Seras shot me a small smirk.
"You were never a prisoner. Just because one group of Disciples knew who you were doesn't mean that all of them would. And that's to say nothing of the Pack and their pit fights or the Operators and their unethical experiments." She replied seriously in a tone that almost made me believe her.
I gathered as much sarcastic energy as I could and said "yeah, sure."
Fifteen minutes later we were near the market of Nuka Town. We being myself, Gage, Seras, and the leaders of the three raider gangs. The look that the dude from the pack was giving me made me uncomfortable, so I placed Seras between us. Nisha, on the other hand, was looking literally everywhere except me, as if I were a Gorgon that could turn her to stone.
"Okay, now the reason that I've gathered you all here is because I am leaving for a short while. I have some business in the Commonwealth that I need to resolve and then I will be back here. It shouldn't take more than a week, but until I return Gage is in charge. One other thing I wanted to assign was the remaining territories. Nisha," Seras motioned to the woman with a spiky metal helmet. "you and the Disciples get the Dry Rock Gulch. Mason," Next was the shirtless guy with blue paint on his chest. "you and the Pack get the Safari Adventure area. Mags," lastly was the sanest looking person of the group. "you and the Operators get the power plant. I expect that all of you will be working to clear your zones of detritus and, in the case of the Operators, getting the plant up and running."
"Why do they get the larger zones and we only get one single building?" Mags asked hesitantly.
"Save for Nuka Town itself, the power plant is the most important structure in the entire park." Seras answered. Mags floundered for a moment before accepting her words and retreating a step. "Now, if there are no other questions then you are dismissed. Mags, I need you to stay behind for a moment, however." Mason and Nisha all but ran back to their respective parts of the park while Mags slowly moved towards Seras, as if any sudden movement would trigger some kind of trap.
"What's wrong, boss?"
"I didn't wish to say this in front of them, but your group is easily the most intelligent and tech savvy. Had I left the power plant to either of them before leaving for a week or more I would expect absolutely nothing to be done towards restoring it. I trust you can get the job done?" Seras leaned in towards Mags, causing the latter to shift uncomfortably.
"Yes ma'am." Mags nodded vigorously.
"Good. You are dismissed." Seras motioned for me to follow her and before I could even blink Mags was sprinting back towards her part of Nuka Town. "I've taken the liberty of having everything that you came here with packed into a duffel bag and placed at the train station." She spoke to me without looking backwards. We passed by several collared slaves, the mere sight of them making my stomach turn and my hatred for Seras to renew.
"Why are you going to the Commonwealth?" I asked with barely restrained anger. Practically every time I had spoken to Seras about the raiders and the slaves, she had brushed it off. She claimed to be on the side of morality, but I had yet to see that at all from her.
"You have to find your son, don't you?" She asked me rhetorically, as if the answer was so obvious that I should have known it. The problem was, that I hadn't once mentioned my son to her or Gage. "By the way, vampires can read minds." She added with a soft chuckle. I blanched, any feeling of privacy I had now gone.
We spent most of the remainder of our trip in silence. It almost didn't seem real. I had spent the last few days dwelling in a miasma of anger at my own innocence, at Seras for keeping me trapped, and at the raiders for setting up that death trap of a gauntlet. She was the first to speak.
"If you have any questions, now is the time to speak them." She handed me my bag and stepped off onto the platform.
I growled, unable to help my sarcastic reply "Why don't you just read my mind? You seem to be good at that." After snatching my bag with far more force than necessary, I headed up the partially caved in stairs that lead to the surface of the western Commonwealth.
"The only reason I know of your son is because you thought of him in our first encounter. I have yet to actually read your mind after that. The only reason I knew what you were going to ask was that look of confusion on your face." I pondered her explanation for a moment, supposing that it did make sense. Though I was still uncertain on several points.
"You said I wasn't a prisoner, yet why did you wait so long to bring me back here?" I asked as we passed the Federal Ration Stockpile. I was making a beeline towards Cambridge, where Danse had been waiting for me. I told him a week ago that I would be joining the Brotherhood as soon as I had made a pit stop home. Then my Pipboy picked up that damnable broadcast. By my estimate, we should reach him a couple hours before nightfall.
"I still had things that needed to be done before I could take a leave of absence. Now, Nuka World can survive for the time we are gone." Was Seras' easy reply. That was understandable, but I was still irked at her for not being completely honest with me.
Something stuck with me, however. "We?" I ducked under a dilapidated fence as we crossed a burned out farmstead.
"You're the first person I've met in almost ten years that isn't a complete psychopath, a raider, a feral ghoul, or a Corsair," She said with an almost sad tone, then added "though the first and last aren't mutually exclusive." I was about to speak, but she held her hand out. "Get down." A protest started to leave my lips, but then I saw them: green clad humanoids about fifty feet ahead of our position. A dozen gunners were spread out, combing through the sparse grain field with a sentry bot bringing up the rear.
Seras had a grim look on her face, as she held her right arm to the side. Said arm slowly darkened and shifted into what looked like a long, jagged sword. Wordlessly, she swung her arm in an arc aimed towards where the gunners were. I heard several screams of pain and a loud, metallic crash. As quickly as it appeared, Seras' arm returned to normal, before she pulled out a very large silver handgun. I followed behind her and got my first look at the damage she unleashed.
The bodies of the gunners, some of which were still alive, had been cut cleanly in half. The sentry bot that had been pulling up the rear suffered the same fate. Without any hesitation, Seras calmly put a single bullet into the head of each of the gunners. The complete ease at how she had eliminated a heavily armed patrol of gunners shocked me.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered under my breath as I took in the scene of carnage.
This remark got the first genuine laugh I had heard from the vampire. "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid."